Even the SPLC has had enough of Women’s March Inc. (though they still won’t condemn the group’s leaders)

It seems the Southern Poverty Law Center does have a threshold of shame after all. The Daily Beast reports the group has quietly dropped support for Women’s March Inc., the central organization which has been under fire for supporting Louis Farrakhan.

Jen Fuson, a spokeswoman for the SPLC, said “other projects were a priority,” but added they would continue to be involved in marches at the local level in areas where they have offices.

The third annual march, to be held on January 19, comes amid criticism of the March leadership’s past affiliation with and failure to fully denounce Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, as well as other allegations of anti-semitism from its former organizers. The SPLC has designated the Nation of Islam as a hate group. Asked whether the Farrakhan connection played a part in the decision not to partner with them, Fuson reiterated that the group had other priorities.

Other priorities? That statement is not exactly a profile in courage. The group is backing away from Womens March Inc., presumably because of the Farrakhan connection but it isn’t willing to say that much less openly criticize the group for coddling an anti-Semite. This is especially hypocritical because criticizing extremists is literally the SPLC’s job. And to be sure, they do criticize Farrakhan but not the Women’s March co-chairs who idolize him. The Daily Beast notes that SPLC was eager to express support for the group in 2017. Here’s a bit of the SPLC press release:

As an official partner of the march, the Southern Poverty Law Center stands in solidarity with its organizers’ vision — that “women’s rights are human rights” — and with the march’s mission to bring together communities “insulted, demonized and threatened by the rhetoric of the past election cycle.”

In November, Actresses Alyssa Milano and Debra Messing both said they wouldn’t be participating in any future events organized by the group. A week later Teresa Shook, the founder of the March, asked all four current co-chairs to step down. And all of that happened before a detailed report which claimed convincingly that the current co-chairs introduced anti-Semitism into the group from the moment they got involved. So it’s not like it would be going way out on a limb at this point for the SPLC to say Women’s March needs new leadership. It looks like the SPLC’s partisan bias is showing once again.

Archives

New Featured Articles

Funny story: I came across this letter this morning when reporters started tweeting excitedly that Schneiderman dirt had been shared a few years back with “Cohen,” which made me laugh because for a second I thought they meant Michael Cohen. A few minutes and several more tweets later, it seemed like they were talking about […]